This dimension of wellness involved getting your blood pressure read at the H&W Hub in the Union. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to keep up with their health and be able to see how their blood pressure varies throughout the day. I didn’t even know this was an option until going into the Health and Wellness Hub. I really enjoyed finding out my blood pressure because I have wanted to check it for a while and since I took physiology I learned about blood pressure being systolic over diastolic. 

Once the blood pressure was taken, I found out it was bout 125 over 75, which is pretty good. It was nice being able to stay on campus and have my blood pressure taken. This is a good indicator at where I am with stress too. I will go in there more often to see where I am at and I am very happy to know there are resources like that on campus for everyone to use.

When I heard about the Zen Den I was unsure about what it was, where it was in the Wellness Center, and how this could positively impact my stress on a spiritual level. But after I went into the Zen Den and tried it out I found it to be an enlightening experience. I went to the Zen Den on January 12, 2013 and first I sat in the massage chair. This really relieved stress as I was able to relax and clear my mind. The room had a dim light setting which really worked well with relaxing me and setting up a great atmosphere. After a 15 minute massage from head to toe I decided to stretch out, since I would be going to workout upstairs afterwards. When I got off the massage chair to stretch I looked straight ahead of me and saw these pamphlets on Time Management and stress relief and decided to read one while stretching. I learned a lot about how I can drastically improve my time management skills, which definitely need to be worked on. While sitting there I also realized that it would be a great place to come back to again to clear my mind and spiritually enrich my being. This was a wonderful way to just relax and overall I was very impressed with how well I felt, not just physically but mentally after being revitalized by the setting of the Zen Den.

Today was a day of Chemistry as usual and he also did more demonstrations! He talked a lot about biochemistry as the main focus. He also talked about how diseases are affected by proteins! Dr. Sullivan is a very genuine and unique professor. I feel very inspired to succeed because of his advise. Pics:

 

Today was just a relaxation day! I slept in late and then we played another volleyball game! Very chill day in the dorms!

Today was a pretty relaxed day! I slept in and when I got up I went to the mall with a few people.

In the evening, I went to Mai Tai and to the movie Magic Mike. It was hilarious. Then we headed back to the dorms and I slept soon afterwards.

Today was another great day at the dental school! In the morning we had this amazing speaker come in! She was talking to us about research and how she just absolutely loves her career. She is from Texas and is just the most amazing lady I have seen at the dental school! Very inspirational. We also had Dr. Vogt talk to us about his profession in endodontics, which we absolutely loved with a passion!

Then we had boxed lunches from the dairy store for the lunch! Mine had a turkey sandwich, an orange, macaroni salad, and a coupon for ice cream. It was delicious! Picture below:

Before we got the ice cream we got to start waxing our teeth in the dental lab! It was amazing! I realy liked doing the waxing and seeing what kind of impact it has in the dental field. Waxing is used to make teeth later on for crowns, bridges, etc by dental techs and it’s really useful to the field of dentistry.

Then after we were done waxing we all walked over to the dairy store for ice cream and headed back to Omaha, NE. It was another successful day at the dental school!

Later that night…

Were all very excited to go to sempack, which is the fun park near Omaha that has a variety of things to do including volleyball, bowling, laser tag, and an arcade. That was a lot of fun! Pics:

Lasertag:

Bowling:

It was a blast!

Today was great! We started the day off as every other day, learning about chemistry and seeing demonstrations-except today we got to learn about Organic Chemistry! Since I already have the background in Organic Chemistry, it was mainly a review. A few of the demonstrations Dr. Sullivan did are shown below:

   

After going to lunch, we had a lecturer talk about climate change and how it affects now only our present, but will make a huge impact on our future! It was a very insightful lecture! Here is a picture of a slide I found to be very interesting:

After we were done learning about climate change, we split into small groups. A lot of us got to leave early to get food and get ready to go shadow in Lincoln. So, we quickly walked over to Subway and got into the vans to go to Sharing Clinic for observing.

The experience at Sharing Clinic was absolutely unreal. I can not believe how much this clinic impacts the lives of many people who are unable to afford healthcare. When first getting there we talked to Dr. Brown who basically told us not to intervene with the patients. We were also told that we had to attach ourselves to a D2 student. At first I was a little hesitant, but once I found a dental student, we started talking and it went really well. I got to observe an extraction on the first patient. When it was time to observe another patient, a different dental student actually asked me if I would assist him! At first I was a little nervous, but it got better. I helped him pack amalgam, suction, and handed him anything he needed. Since the patient spoke only Spanish I also was asked to translate! I can not believe how fortunate I am to have all the experience!

After Sharing Clinic, we drove back and I worked out and headed to bed.

Today was a very hectic day! At first I thought it was going to be a relaxed day and squeeze in a little nap, however the night was too packed with activities and I was unable to do anything but the busy events. We started the day with Chemistry.Chemistry is all relatively familiar since I have taken both general and organic chemistry. Dr. Sullivan is the the professor we have and he really makes it easy to pay attention in class. He also puts in a lot of effort to make the whole class understand exactly what he’s talking about and he throws in some really great stories relating to Chemistry every day! The topic we focused on today was acid/base chemistry which also apply to some real world applications. These applications include having too much.little of acid/bases and it was quite interesting to hear all the new terms he introduced!

For our weekly Health Disparities course, we learned about LGBT health and how revealing their preferences may cause some very unnecessary reactions within the healthcare setting. We also talked about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and how it lead to the distrust trust of whites by African Americans. Overall, the lectures were very enlightening. The LGBT presenter revealed that if we, as future healthcare providers, will not treat the LGBT group, they will need to be referred to others and we can change the outlook of these disparities.

Since out TA group had done our presentation on the Tuskegee Syphilis study, we were able to know a lot of the information before reading it. It is always overwhelming to hear about the African Americans who suffered through everything we put them through in our country. After the lecture we got lectured by Stephen and went on the bus.

Once arriving back to the dorms, the night got hectic. I worked out, then ate, then went to book club which was right before the fireside chat. Lastly, we had a volleyball game!

For our fireside chat there were three men that came to speak to all of us. These men included,an orthopedic surgeon- Dr. Tyrance, a clinical psychologist, and the dean of admission’s at the dental college- Dr. Vogt. Each story was very enlightening and I learned more and more about the paths they took to get where they all are today. Dr Tyrance was absolutely amazing and just had a great personality to keep the lecture positive. He also gave us one piece of advise: “Be passionate and surround yourself with positive people”. This is such a great piece of advise, considering that when there are always negative people around, the mood of everyone will be brought down.

Lastly, we had our volleyball game-and WON! Yay!

Another exciting day here at SMDEP!

Today was really interesting! The Chemistry professor showed a lot of demonstrations in class and we did learned a lot about different equations and stuff (shown below):

When we got back to the dorms, me and a few others went to the mall. We found some cute dresses to wear for the formal.

Then,we went back to the dorms for a bit and then we went to Dave and Buster’s! Shown below:

   

Then Sonic afterwards:

Good day!

Today was a pretty interesting in Physics. He did a lot of very helpful demonstrations and it was really cool to see what he had planned for us!

   

Then, we went to lunch and split into groups together too!

After class was over, we went back to the dorms and I basically worked out, had supper, and we all chilled.